276w ago - Update: DriverHeaven.net has now received clarification on this from IBM, to quote: "only one CPU development cycle is being 'halted' which is the successor to the current PowerXCell-8i cpu. IBM have said they are planning to work on other CPU's in the Cell Processor 'family'."

Today PlayStationUniversity.com (linked above) is reporting that IBM's Vice President David Turekannounced that Cell processor development will be phased out.

Apparently the planned 32 SPE Cell processor will not be made, and their current PowerXCell 8i will be the company's last entrance in the technology.

To quote: "The Cell Processor was originally the brain child of 'The Father of PlayStation' Ken Kutaragi. It was later co-developed by Sony, IBM and Toshiba; making its way into the PlayStation 3, TV's and super computers.

So what does this mean for Sony and the PlayStation 4? Will this change with IBM pulling out of their own development?

Not necessarily. Sony can still hire IBM to create a Cell Processor for their next console, without IBM being involved in their own internal development outside of the PS4."

The 45 nm Cell processor was introduced in concert with Sony's PlayStation 3 Slim in August 2009.

In November 2009, an IBM representative said that it has discontinued the development of a Cell processor with 32 SPUs[19] but they have not halted development of other future products in the Cell family.

I wouldn't mind if they'd use the 8 SPE cell processor again for the PS4. It wasn't/isn't exactly the bottleneck in the PS3. The remaining hardware and its complete design structure is. Especially the GPU.

It might actually still be fast enough for the next gen Playstation. A 32 SPE cell sounds too good to be true, but perhaps unnessecary to have that many.

This is weird to me. Cell looked like it was a pretty nice processor so why IBM is leaving I dont know. They say they might work on a hybrig GPU/CPU instead but isnt that what cell is in a way? Too bad its now sony and toshiba? alone in it